Court seizes $500,000 from Dunne’s American lawyer

Legal firm has yet to enter a defence as former gossip columnist accuses it of misappropriating her funds while dealing with an US visa application

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NEW YORK judge has ordered sheriffs to secure $500,000 (€387,000) from the lawyer and legal firm that Gayle Dunne has accused of misappropriating her funds.

Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich has ruled that sheriffs of any county in the state of New York could secure $500,000, plus costs and sheriff’s fees and expenses, against Philip Teplen and his firm, Teplen & Associates, before the court makes a final judgment.

Teplen had been retained by Dunne, a former gossip columnist with an Irish Sunday newspaper, to help process her American visa application. It is alleged that he failed to return $500,000 that she put up to support her application.

In the judge’s order, made last week, Kornreich said that the sheriffs could levy within their jurisdiction “upon any such property in which the defendants have an interest”.

This was to include bank accounts and the partnership interest in Teplen & Associates,